Poverty of materials makes recursive combination operation evolvable

Abstract

Humans can use recursive combination operation in various
behaviors; other primates, however, rarely perform this operation. In our
previous research, using an evolutionary simulation of combination behavior, we
showed that recursive combination was more adaptive than repetitive combination
in cases where the robustness of production or the diversity of products was
required. In this research, we examined the evolvability of recursive combination
in combinatorial space parametrized by kinds of elemental materials and the
number of elements per product. Recursive combination evolved in the region of
low kinds of elemental materials and large number of elements per product. This
region may be compared with the situation of the middle stone age when invented
diversified tools with limited kinds of materials such as stone, bone, and woods.
The recursive combinatorial operation could scaffold the evolution of general
recursive combination abilities including language, technology, music, and
mathematics.